This invention relates to a balustrade for a passenger conveyor such as a moving stairway, a moving walkway, and particularly to a balustrade for a passenger conveyor excellent in a design and improved on safety at landings.
Recent passenger conveyors are expected to have various factors such as sufficient transportability, a reduced electrid power consumption, a high safety, a good design, etc. Very recently, the passenger conveyor is acknowledged as a high public conveyance and further its safety to passengers is evaluated. On the other hand, passenger conveyors which have an excellent design so as to accord with the modernity of a building design without reducing the safety to passengers are desired.
In general, a passenger conveyor is constructed of a moving part and a stationary part. The moving part comprises a plurality of steps arranged endlessly to circulate between first and second landings and a pair of moving handrails disposed on the opposite sides of the steps and circulating in synchronism with the circulating steps. The stationary part comprises floors and combs constituting the first and second landings and balustrades. All the above-mentioned parts are supported on building floors by a frame.
An example of the balustrade for supporting the moving handrail is disclosed in GB No. 2104471A, FIG. 3, and constructed of a balustrade panel made of glass, a handrail frame secured to the upper edge through a packing, and a guide secured to the handrail frame and guiding the handrail. The handrail frame has projections one of which projects into a step side by a distance 1b and the other into the opposite side to the step side by a distance 1a. An illumination device is provided on the under side of the projection on the opposite side to the steps side.
The balustrade gives passengers a feeling of grandness, however, it has disadvantages or troubles one of which reduces a feeling of transparency by a part of the handrail frame existing between the handrail and the upper edge of the balustrade panel, and another is falling or stumbling caused by touching the projection directed toward the step side with short children's arms.
Another example of the balustrade is disclosed in FIG. 4 of the same publication. The balustrade is constructed of a glass panel, a guide frame which is fixed to the glass panel by fastening bolts passing through notches made in an upper portion of the glass panel, and guide members covering the upper surface of the guide frame and guiding the moving handrail. The guide frame and the guide members are formed so that they all are substantially within the moving handrail. Therefore, the balustrade can solve the above-mentioned disadvantages, that is, the problem relating to the safety and reduction of the transparency. Additionally, the balustrade is watched as a simple and light balustrade construction which is designed in a highly individual style and has a high safety. However, since the balustrade is not provided with a handrail frame such as provided in the balustrade in FIG. 3 of the UK Patent Application GB No. 2104471A, the balustrade has a disadvantage such that an illumination device can not be mounted in a good style. The balustrade not provided with the illumination device, in particular, is unsatisfactory under the low-illumination circumferences because foot portions of the passengers can not be illuminated well at the landings.
An example of this kind of the balustrade on which a lamp is mounted is disclosed in Japanese Utility-Model Laid-Open No. 56-158469. The balustrade, however, has an opaque portion between the moving handrail and the lamp, which reduces a feeling of transparency. Japanese Utility-Model Laid-Open No. 47-9186 discloses lamp wirings led into the conveyor interior. Further, an usual passenger conveyor is provided with an entrance-prevention fence which is disclosed in Japanese Utility-Model Laid-Open No. 58-192869. In the above-mentioned construction, the mounting construction is somewhat complicated.
As mentioned above, the conventional passenger conveyors have drawbacks with respect to a safety, mounting of parts of the illumination device or a transparency feeling.
Further, when children and old men get on or get off the running steps from the stationary of the floor and the comb, they may lose their balance and fall sometime there. As measures to this accident, there is needed means for illuminating the landings so as to make clear a boundary between the stationary part and the moving part at the landings and existance of the landings, whereby persons met with accidents are watched and saved early and quickly.